Masins Pioneer Square building could attract high-tech tenant

There might be a silver lining in Masins Fine Furnishings & Interior Design plans to leave its long-time location in Pioneer Square.

While the furniture store has been a stable presence in Seattle’s historic Pioneer Square district for nearly 80 years, a different type of tenant might bring more shoppers and diners to the neighborhood.

“I think for a lot of customers, it was a destination shop,” said Lisa Dixon, program director for the Alliance for Pioneer Square. “It was not necessarily people coming to the neighborhood to shop.”

If a good-sized business were to move into the four-story brick building, it would add more people to the neighborhood to shop or eat lunch in the neighborhood and be “a more constant presence,” Dixon said.

The Masin family owns the triangular 34,772-square-foot building, which is located at 220 Second Ave. The building was constructed in 1907 and extensively renovated in 2007 with a seismic upgrade, a new heating and cooling system, new bathrooms and a new elevator. It includes just under 25,908 square feet of space on its upper floors above an 8,864 square-foot basement.

The historic Pioneer Square district, with its century-old brick buildings, has attracted a number of high-tech companies in recent years. An Alliance survey of the neighborhood conducted a year ago found 28 percent of the office workforce in the area consisted of high-tech companies. That number has been growing.

Recently the gaming company Zynga moved into the Washington Shoe Building, while just a few blocks away in the International District, Isilon Systems this month will be bringing about 600 employees into the area. The online investment brokerage Sharebuilder from ING Direct moved its 350 employees into Pioneer Square’s 83 King Street building in 2008.

“A lot of tech and creative companies like unusual spaces. I think that’s why a lot choose to come down to Pioneer Square, in addition to the affordable rents,” Dixon said.

Kidder Mathews vice president Jeff Huntington is leasing the Masins building on behalf of the Masin family, along with Kidder Mathews senior vice president Tim Foster and associate vice president Lloyd Low. Huntington said he’s already had several inquiries from tech companies about the property.

With concrete floors and an exposed ceiling, the old brick building has “the look and feel that many tenants out in the marketplace are looking for,” Huntington said.

Additionally, there are some enclosed spaces that could serve for conference rooms. If the dividers Masins set up to create vignettes for displaying its furniture were removed, the floors would be very open.

On the downside, there is only parking for 15 cars, which was a challenge for the furniture retailer. But, said Huntington, the building is close to a major mass-transit hub, and a number of Pioneer Square businesses contract with neighborhood parking garages and lots.

The neighborhood does provide social services to poor and homeless people, but Huntington, who represents several Pioneer Square properties, said he was unaware of any direct issues anyone has had relating to criminal activity.